Josh Makower, MD, MBA

Josh Makower has dedicated his life to the creation of medical technologies that improve the quality of life for patients. He is the Founder of ExploraMed Development, LLC, a medical device incubator based on the west coast. He is also a General Partner with New Enterprise Associates (NEA), where he leads the investing activity in the medical device and healthtech arena. Josh serves as a Consulting Professor of Medicine at Stanford University Medical School and co-founded Stanford’s Biodesign Program. A compendium of the materials created to support the teaching efforts in the Stanford Biodesign program has been published under the Cambridge University text title of Biodesign: The Process of Innovating Medical Technologies.

Josh has founded several companies through the ExploraMed incubator that have achieved successful M&A transactions, including Acclarent, Inc., a company focused on developing novel therapies in ENT, which was acquired by J&J in 2010; TransVascular, Inc., a company focused on the development of a completely catheter-based coronary bypass technology, which was acquired by Medtronic, Inc. in 2003; and EndoMatrix, Inc., a company focused on the development of a novel therapy for incontinence and GI Reflux, which was acquired by CR Bard in 1997. Until 1995, Josh was Founder and Manager of Pfizer’s Strategic Innovation Group, a group chartered to create new medical technologies and businesses for Pfizer’s medical device businesses.

Josh also serves on the Board of Directors for Eargo, DOTS Devices, NC7, Nuelle, Coravin, NeoTract, Moximed, Intrinsic Therapeutics, and ExploraMed. He holds over 300 patents and patent applications for various medical devices in the fields of Orthopedics, ENT, Cardiology, General Surgery, Drug Delivery, Women’s Health, and Urology.

Josh holds an MBA from Columbia University, an MD from the New York University School of Medicine, and an SB in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.